BROTHERHOOD SPOKESMAN AL HADDAD ARRESTED IN CAIRO

       Cairo, 12 Dzulqa’idah 1434/18 September 2013 (MINA) – Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Jihad al-Haddad was arrested in Cairo on Tuesday as part of an ongoing crackdown on the Islamist group from which ousted president Mohamed Morsi hails, a security source said.

      Al-Haddad was arrested along with five Brotherhood leaders at an apartment in eastern Cairo’s Nasr City district, Anadolu Agency quoted by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

     They included Mahmoud Abu Zeid, a member of the Brotherhood’s guidance bureau (the group’s highest administrative body), former Qalioubiya governor Hossam Abu Bakr, and former lawmaker Ahmed Diab, the source said.

      The men will be taken to Tora Prison in southern Cairo, the source added.

      Jihad al-Haddad is the son of Essam al-Haddad, Morsi’s former adviser for foreign affairs who is now being held by authorities following Morsi’s July 3 ouster by the powerful army – a move the Brotherhood describes as a “military coup.”

   Egyptian authorities have unleashed a massive crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood leaders and members since the bloody dispersal one month ago of two anti-coup protest camps, in which hundreds of demonstrators were killed by security forces.

     Since then, Egypt’s military-backed authorities have rounded up hundreds of the group’s senior and mid-ranking members, topped by Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie and deputies Khairat al-Shater and Rashad Bayoumi.

      Morsi told his family in a recent phone conversation that he would “stand my ground to my last breath.”

      That recent phone disclosed by a source close to Morsi family.

      Morsi seemed “in high spirits,” saying he was following ongoing developments in Egypt, the source said. (T/P09/E1).

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA).